Watch Me Never Leave Me
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: Had her life really touched so few? The Sokyoku is released and Rukia remembers why she wanted to live. A series of shorts based on the story of Bleach from Rukia's point of view. 34
1. Chapter 1

Nothing could have prepared Rukia for the size of the _sokyoku. _Rising nearly a hundred feet into the air, two verticals supported a cross-beam onto which the condemned would be bound. It dominated the horizon, standing, as it did, on a plateau of bare rock. The highest point in the _sereitei._

She kept her eyes straight ahead. There was a small crowd at the base of the structure. She dared not glance in their direction until such time as the guards had marched her up onto a platform. She was standing directly beneath the crossbar now, though it was an unimaginable distance overhead. They unhooked the ropes from the collar she wore and stepped back.

There, standing in a formal line to her left were the Captain Commander of the First Division and his deputy, who were expected to be present at any execution, Captain Unohana of the Fourth Division and Kyoraku of the Eighth, alongside their vice-captains. She blinked. No others? These were faces she knew only in passing.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that Ukitake and Renji would have come if they could. Beyond that though, had her life really touched so few? The last to join the small gathering was Byakuya. She had half-believed he would not come, but, as he approached, her chest tightened with a mixture of gratitude and irrational hope. She'd known neither affection nor love from the man, but he was still the only family she'd ever had. And he had come.

He passed close. Close enough that he would hear her:

"_Nii-sama."_

She expected a response. An acknowledgement. Even the tilt of his head.

Yet the dead stare that met her own spoke more than a thousand words of accusation. Had she harboured any lasting hope, it withered now under his grey gaze.

You are no longer my sister.

And if she ever had been, she need only remember his momentary loss of control on the bridge. Up until her arrest, it had perhaps been his duty to protect her and, in turn, her duty not to bring shame on his family. She had broken that tryst and, with it, anything that had connected him to her.

"Do you have any last requests?" asked the Captain Commander.

She looked at those who had come to watch her die. She felt numb:

"I want you to pardon those who tried to save me: the _shinigami _and the _ryoka. _As for the _ryoka, _I want you to show them mercy and return them to their own world without punishment."

"So be it," he said after a moment: "I will grant your last request."

Would he lie to her, she wondered, in such a moment? She suspected he would do whatever the Central Forty-six asked of him, but, then again, she wanted very much to believe it. He raised his hand and she felt the ropes that bound her wrists break apart. There was no sense of sudden freedom. A powerful force raised both her arms out to her sides where _kido _pinned her wrists to blocks of white metal. They hovered level with her head, but at such a distance from her body that the motion seemed almost to pull her arms from their sockets. And then she was held rigid. The blocks began to rise, lifting her body between them. Her feet lost contact with the ground; she was carried upwards towards the crossbeam, giddy with vertigo as the faces she knew shrank and blurred into the distance. Hanging now, a hundred feet above the ground, she couldn't feel the _kido _that held her; only the unnatural tension in her arms. She could see all of the _sereitei _from here, all of Rukongai, the woodlands where Kaien had hunted the hollow that killed his wife, the streets where she had grown up and the river where she and Renji had once fished. Beyond that, the foothills and the mountains and a horizon as blue and empty as the first dawn breaking over this world. She closed her eyes, forcing everything from her mind but the blank of the sky.

She didn't hear the incantation and she didn't see the _sokyoku's _release, but, all at once, the air was filled with smoke. A wall of heat rose up from beneath her and broke like a wave across her body.

The _sokyoku _was both beautiful and terrible: a vast bird forged from fire. Flames boiled from its chest and formed sheets in the molten air. Its vast wings obscured the sky, filling her vision with brown smoke, so that even the sunlight had turned a dusty gold where it pierced those clouds. She could see neither the earth nor the sky anymore and could feel nothing but the fire, as if her body were already ablaze. The fire was _kido, _she knew. Not so different from the energy she channelled through her own body, but it was hundreds of thousands of times more powerful. And the _sokyoku _existed for one purpose only: all of that power, all of that energy was concentrated into a single point. When the beak of the firebird pierced her body, her soul would dissolve.

She tried to steady her breathing and she spoke aloud:

"I am grateful," she said. "I have no regrets." The wings beat around her, the fire seeming to lick at her face; the heat, unbearable. But her voice was strong as she cried out in defiance of it: "Renji found me when I was alone! _Nii-sama _gave me a home! Kaien-_dono _taught me to fight! Ichigo " – She faltered – "Ichigo tried to save me." She was crying now, but the tears rolling down her cheeks were drying before they could reach her chin. For all that she had been ready, she realised now that no amount of preparation could overturn her desire to live. There were people that she wanted to see again, and things that she had meant to tell them: "Thank you!" The way Renji had smiled at her; the way his arms had encircled her and held her all night that last time they slept in the slums of Rukongai. The brilliance of her brother's garden the first day she had crossed his lawn in the shadow of the cherry blossoms. "Thank you." Kaien's figure, walking ahead of her, up towards the pass in the mountains. Always walking ahead. "Thank you."

And Ichigo.

There would be no regrets, but if she could have wished for one thing, one selfish, selfish thing, then it would have been for more time. Time enough to understand why he had come after her. Time enough to apologise. Time enough to sit in his room and read his books and walk the same route home by the river, day after day, sunset after sunset. "Thank you," she said. "Farewell."

The firebird plunged towards her.

She closed her eyes. Let it be quick. Already it felt as if the heat was enough to peel the skin from her bones, as if her flesh was burning. She longed for the cold. For an empty blue sky. For the icy winds on the highest peaks of the Rukon.

Nothing.

The fire crackled. She felt as if her skin would blister. She was still drawing long breaths of smoke-filled air, certain that each one would be her last. But there was no pain and, although it took her some time to reach this conclusion: she was almost certainly not dead.

"Yo!" someone shouted.

She opened her eyes. He was standing there in the air, a little way above her head, wreathed in smoke.

"Ichigo."

She might have believed that she really was dead and all this just a figment of her imagination had he not looked so damned pleased with himself. He had his sword over one shoulder where he had used it to deflect a blow, and now she saw that the bird had pulled back, the entire might of the _sokyoku _rebounding from his blade. Thin slivers of blue sky were breaking through in the wake of its retreat: "Ichigo," she tried again, testing his name on her lips. It had never tasted quite so sweet.

"Rukia." His face softened: "I've come to rescue you." She had lived for a hundred and fifty years and, in all that time, no-one had ever looked at her the way he was looking at her now. She felt something inside her break apart, and then she was crying:

"You idiot! You stupid, stupid idiot!" she wept: "I told you not to come after me" - !

"Yeah. Whatever. Save it for later."

He turned to look over his shoulder. Someone had thrown a lassoo from the ground and it had looped itself around the firebird's neck. "Good. I don't think I could have taken another attack by that. It looks like we don't have too much time though. I'm going to destroy the _sokyoku." _He stepped out of the air and onto the crossbar above her head.

"You can't! We'll both be killed! Ichigo! You're not strong enough!"

"Really?" He grinned at her: "Watch me!"


	2. Chapter 2

**If you enjoyed this story, please keep reading as it will continue in "STRONGER," which I will upload to my profile shortly after posting this. :)**

**All my thanks and appreciation to regular readers:**

**Shadewolf7, Truantpony, ForbiddenME, Pinky357, Immortal Vows, Chellythemadhatter, Insomniatic95, Sallythedestroyerofworlds23, UNTensaZangetsu, XDark FangsX, Superlynx, Ichigoforeverlove, Ennaalemap, Makaykay15, Kaze05, Splash into Forever, War90, Yellowwomanonthebrink, Bakane, Night Flower, Hallmarktrinity, Tiffany Park, Snowcrystals, Neristhaed, Splitheart1120, VanillaTwilight4, Nightfur, Happykiller93, Haildance, Ani-mimi, Mysticalphoenix-avalon, Jennyrdr and Goranr.**

**And everyone else who is reading and reviewing. THANK YOU!**


End file.
